


Taffy

by shuuvee



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crack, Day At The Beach, Fluff, M/M, Oneshot, Slice of Life, soonyoung + chan + hao are best friends, this is really just like 4k words of summer fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 11:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15217706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuuvee/pseuds/shuuvee
Summary: Minghao had like three seconds of freedom at the beach before some random kid named Junhui decided to join him.





	Taffy

Screw Chan for calling shotgun.

With Soonyoung driving and Chan up front… well, that meant that Minghao, who was all limbs, was stuck in the back of Soonyoung’s tiny sedan, squitching his legs behind Chan, his knees digging into the fabric lining the plastic-backed seat. Chan was like half a head shorter than him! Just because he wanted to DJ -- he could’ve DJed from the _back_ of the car. The aux cord did reach that far; Minghao wondered if this was just another way for Chan to torture him, especially because he almost forced his way into the front seat… until his butt was halfway into what was now Chan’s seat but his face was staring at what was the perhaps the saddest pair of puppy eyes in existence.

So Chan was up front with Soonyoung, and Minghao was in the back suffering by himself. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the beach weren’t two hours away. Correction: three hours away with this traffic. Minghao was pretty sure he was losing circulation in his legs, so he unbuckled his seatbelt while they sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic, throwing his legs up on the empty seat next to him. 

“Yo! Seatbelts on, Hao,” Soonyoung scolded him, glaring at the taller boy through the rearview mirror. In response, Minghao rolled his eyes, sticking his tongue out at the driver.

“When we start moving faster than I can walk, I’ll put it back on,” Minghao protested, slipping farther down into what was turning into his lounge seat in the back. His head was resting against the door on one side and his feet almost reached the door on the other end. He started slipping his shoes off with his feet, throwing them to the floor. Maybe losing shotgun wasn’t so bad?

Soonyoung wasn’t done with him yet. “My car, my rules!”

“ _Fine_ ,” he acquiesced, while Chan snickered at his plight. Minghao flipped him off from the back seat before reaching up, grabbing his seatbelt, and buckling it up. His seatbelt was buckled, and he was kinda of in it but still laying down -- that was the best Soonyoung was gonna get right now.

Soonyoung and Chan were his childhood best friends; they were still his best friends, to be honest. Soonyoung was a year above him in college, starting his junior year next year. Minghao was gonna be a sophomore, and Chan was about to start college. They were all home from school, and this was probably the last summer they’d spend all together at home, given that Soonyoung needed to start preparing for the real world next summer, getting a job and whatnot. Chan, meanwhile, was getting his first taste of college life, his first of taste of freedom… by doing the exact same thing they did every summer.

At least, that’s how it was starting.

At least they were getting out of the way earlier in the summer -- and minus the fams, so they could do whatever they want.

“So what are we gonna do first?” Chan blurted out, turning down the music abruptly. Soonyoung grumbled in discontent, no longer able to belt out to his favorite girl groups in Chan’s impromptu “2000s Throwback Mix-A-Thon” as he dubbed it.

“Is that even really a question,” Minghao sassed, rolling his eyes.

Maybe it was a question for him, but for Chan and Soonyoung? He knew exactly what those two were gonna do, especially since they could waste their time today. The three of them had convinced their parents to bankroll them renting a room for the night at one of the beachside hotels, so Chan and Soonyoung felt absolutely no obligation to satiate Minghao’s desire to, like, not --

“-- Let’s get taffy first,” Soonyoung suggested, to absolutely no one’s surprise. 

That was exactly what the ever-excitable Chan wanted to hear, nodding aggressively. Minghao sat up.

Every time they went to the beach, Chan and Soonyoung spent, like, half their time jumping from candy store to candy store, sampling all the freshly-made sea-salt taffy flavors. Hours on end of… eating taffy. Eventually, they’d each end up with several huge bags of different-colored taffy, a mish-mash of flavors that made absolutely no sense. Minghao was usually okay with the whole ritual, and it wasn’t like he hated taffy or anything…

… _But_ , last time Chan handed him a brown taffy and told him it was chocolate. It was actually soda-flavored, and it was absolutely disgusting. It took half the day for Minghao to get the awful aftertaste out of his flavor palette. He was so pissed at Chan.

“I, uh, think I’ll pass on that,” Minghao replied, causing Soonyoung to glare at him through the rearview mirror again. Chan, meanwhile, looped his head around his seatrest, shooting him an equally disappointed look.

“Is this because of the soda taffy?” Soonyoung quickly asked, the tone of his voice flat and, um, clearly disappointed.

Minghao shook his head. “I mean, yeah, but, like, I also don’t wanna spend all day staring at candy.”

“We’re not gonna spend _all day_ buying taffy,” Chan countered, emphasizing the fact that it was indeed going to be an all-day event.

Minghao cocked an eyebrow at the two of them. “Uh huh.”

“Look, we’ll probably go to the arcade in between taffy runs,” Soonyoung rationalized. “And I’m sure we’ll hit the beach eventually. Y’know, once the water warms up a bit.”

Well, Soonyoung _did_ have a point there. Minghao was already wearing his swim trunks, but the water was probably gonna be freakishly cold this early in the morning. And he was a bit of wimp when it came to cold water. Still.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you two sugar-crazed maniacs.”

Chan groaned at him. “You at least have to come to the first store with us.”

Soonyoung nodded. “Yeah, we need to hook you up with a minimum of one huge bag of taffy.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Minghao reluctantly agreed, crossing his arms. Chan pumped his fist in excitement, looping his head back around his seat to shoot Minghao two very enthusiastic thumbs-up. Minghao was done with Chan’s antics, flicking the boy in the forehead before laying back down in the back seat.

* * *

It took Minghao approximately five seconds to free himself of the taffy-tasting hell.

Within five seconds of entering the candy store, Soonyoung and Chan had already diffused into some sort of sugar-induced trance, ignoring anything that wasn’t taffy or the other half of their duo hyping up said taffy. It was ridiculous -- like a cult, really.

So, uh, Minghao kinda just walked out? And he started meandering toward the beach boardwalk, where there were more candy shops and arcades and ice cream parlors and souvenir shops. There was the sea wall that ran along the opposite end of the boardwalk, closer to the ocean. Then there was the narrow strip of beach leading on up to the crashing waves, the smell of salt and of the ocean wafting through the sleepy beach town. Altogether, it wasn't that impressive, but they always went here... every summer, without fail. It was their thing.

Sometimes it was nice to get away from the other two boys -- they were his best friends forever and always, but sometimes he needed a break from their… loud voices. Both of them were gonna be on a sugar-high for the rest of the day, and there wasn’t enough Tylenol in the world to help him with that headache. Plus, he was gonna be seeing Soonyoung and Chan all summer; it was okay to slip away from them for a few hours during their beach getaway.

Minghao wandered over toward the end of the boardwalk, passing all the shops that didn’t open til later in the day. The town was still waking up; there were a few other people milling about, but the beach and the boardwalk were both pretty empty. Minghao decided to stray from the side of the boardwalk with the shops, heading over toward the sea wall and hoisting himself on top of the concrete structure, his feet dangling off the edge of the wall facing the beach and his butt planted on the flat part of the wall on the top. He kicked the salty air back-and-forth, watching the tide roll in for a few minutes in pure, blissful silence. To be honest, Minghao wasn’t really thinking of anything right now. But sometimes, it was nice not to have to think, like when he had to come up with sassy comebacks for Soonyoung and Chan all the time. It was nice to be quiet. It was --

“Hiya!”

Before Minghao could finish his thought, someone else leaped on up to the sea wall next to him, scooting just close enough so that their bodies weren’t touching but close enough that if Minghao so much as breathed to the left, the new person would feel it. Minghao quickly looked over at the person who joined him, a little peeved that someone just intruded on his Hao-time.

The new person was a boy who couldn’t be much older than him. Maybe a junior in college? He was pretty, though. Bright pink hair that cut through the humid, salty air like it was nothing.

“Um, hi?” Minghao replied, trying to make his voice sound the right amount of annoyed. “Do I know you?”

The other boy laughed. He _laughed_ , and Minghao thought he might just fall off the sea wall and plant his head into the sand like an ostrich, never to be seen in public again because, wow, that laugh was angelic.

“No, you don’t,” the other boy replied, his sweet-sounding lisp matching his cotton candy-colored hair. “I’m Junhui, I live around here.”

“I’m, uh, Minghao,” he quickly replied, trying to ignore how Junhui’s eyelashes fluttered a lot when he blinked. “And, um, why are you here?”

Junhui pulled his legs up from dangling over the edge of the sea wall, hugging them with his lanky arms. “No reason,” Junhui murmured.

“No… reason…?”

Junhui looked off toward the ocean. “Well there is a reason, but I don’t want to tell you yet.”

“You… don’t want to… tell me?”

The pink-haired boy nodded. “Did you come here by yourself?”

“No, uh,” Minghao started, “my friends are here, but they’re probably gonna be off buying taffy all day, so I guess I’ll be by myself for a while.”

Junhui giggled again. “Maybe I’ll tell you if you spend the day with me,” Junhui lilted, pivoting around and gracefully falling off the sea wall and back onto the boardwalk.

Ordinarily, Minghao would have ignored whatever just happened. But there was something about Junhui that made him fall off the sea wall -- perhaps not as gracefully as the pink-haired boy -- and follow him back toward the main part of the boardwalk.

* * *

Minghao couldn’t help but notice how big Junhui’s smile got when the pink-haired boy -- who also happened to be slightly taller -- noticed that Minghao was joining him. Something told Minghao that Junhui was just as loud as Soonyoung and Chan, and Junhui confirmed that within fifteen seconds, listing off all the things they could do together, his voice steadily getting higher in volume with excitement. Minghao tried to move a little farther away, but Junhui just pulled him back in, wrapping one arm around Minghao’s waist and using his free hand to gesticulate all the different things they could do, all the different places they could go.

“Oh,” Minghao finally spoke up, motioning behind him. “My friends and I usually go to the ice cream shop at the other end of the boardwalk.”

Junhui looked incredulous, shaking his head in disapproval. “Hao, you’ve been missing out on the best ice cream this town has to offer.”

And with that, ice cream later in the day was settled. And _Minghao_ became _Hao_ , which steadily turned into _Hao-hao_ ; only his mother ever called him that, but Junhui was blabbing on and on about stuff to do today that Minghao didn’t bother correcting him. Honestly, he didn’t even care that Junhui did most of the talking -- Minghao liked just following the lilt of Junhui’s voice, how his naturally high-pitched voice got even higher when he got excited or when he got super dramatic and made a huge scene out of something. Junhui didn’t seem real.

Not to mention that Minghao usually hated when people he didn’t know touched him, even simple things like an arm around the shoulder or waist. But he didn’t have the heart to tell Junhui. 

(Or the heart to say that he actually kinda liked it.)

Junhui guided them over toward the actual entrance to the beach, releasing his hand from Minghao’s waist to slip off his shoes. “I would’ve just jumped off the wall to the beach,” Junhui explained, “But I figured you wouldn’t have followed me because you didn’t want sand in your sandals.”

Minghao smiled. “You figured right.”

He slipped off his own shoes while Junhui plowed on ahead, his feet digging into the sand a little. Minghao raced over to Junhui, catching up to the taller boy.

“So you come here every summer?” Minghao asked.

Junhui nodded. “Yeah, but this is probably the last summer. I really need to find a job next summer. And, uh…”

Minghao waited for the explanation that didn’t come. “Uh what?” he added.

“Um, well… it’s just that this town is full of old people and there’s no one else around my age here except on the weekends when all the tourists come in…”

“And most of them aren’t alone like me?”

“Right?” Junhui agreed, stopping just at the edge of the water. “It’s lonely and my grandmother doesn’t understand that, _no_ , I do not want to knit all day.”

“You just want to go scare random people on the boardwalk?”

“Yeah, ex -- hey, no, I didn’t scare you!” Junhui protested. “Unless any sort of human interactions scares you.”

“Maybe it does,” Minghao defended.

“Oh c’mon Hao-hao, you don’t look scared right now!”

Minghao looked over toward the incoming water to their right, the water that was now brushing up against their feet because of the rising tide. “Maybe I am.”

“Right. The kid with bright pink hair is scary, huh?” Before Minghao could blurt out another blithe retort, Junhui made his best scary face, which came off as cute more than anything else -- Junhui wiggled his finger-horns way too much and his frown morphed into uncontrollable giggling within like five seconds.

“Now I’m just scared to be your friend,” Minghao muttered, turning around and walking along the edge of the water. On some level, he instantly regretted what he just said because Junhui might stop hanging out with him if he took it too literally. And, well, Minghao didn’t want a stupid _joke_ to be the reason he never talked to Junhui again, so he suddenly stopped, turned around again, only to find Junhui running after him a little too fast. So fast that --

“Ohmygod -- _ow_!” Minghao shouted as Junhui tackled him to the ground. Minghao was stuck on the bottom of the Junhui-Minghao sandwich, the tide rolling into his clothes and singing his lower body with cold water. Meanwhile, Junhui weighed a lot and was kinda crushing his ribs, making it hard to breathe. Junhui, who was of course oblivious to all of Minghao’s suffering, was laughing so hard that he basically rolled off of Minghao and into the wet sand, his whole body convulsing as he laughed even more ridiculously.

Minghao shivered. “Why -- why did you…”

“... I -- I was running and…” Junhui choked out between laughs, “... And you stopped… and I -- I couldn’t stop fast enough… so I grabbed onto you…”

“And pulled me down with you!?” Minghao interrogtaed, sitting up and rubbing the sand off of his shirt. Junhui just looked back over at him, which made him laugh even harder.

“I -- I thought you weighed more!”

Minghao moved to rubbing the sand off his swim trunks. “Listen here, Junhui. I’m wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts. I don’t know what type of weight you think I’m hiding here because I weigh, like, three feathers and a nickel.”

Junhui couldn’t help his laughing, his head crashing back down onto the wet sand -- until the tide rolled in again and soaked his pink hair, causing the taller boy to shriek in pain and tumble over Minghao until he was back on the dry sand farther up. Minghao had guessed that Junhui had no respect for personal boundaries but this was getting ridiculous.

“You’re also broad and probably eat more than I do!” Minghao added while Junhui panted on the drier patch of sand next to Minghao. He took the opportunity to get up and look down at Junhui, who looked like he was still getting over how cold the water was.

“So -- so you think I’m cute?” Junhui blurted out.

Minghao just rolled his eyes, groaned, and started walking back toward the boardwalk.

* * *

_Let me make it up to you_ , Junhui said.

 _I can buy you ice cream_ , he said.

 _We can go to the arcade together_ , he said.

And… honestly… Minghao was glad he said yes to Junhui begging him for a chance to make up for tackling him into the ocean. Not that there was a planet in which Minghao could say no to Junhui’s puppy eyes. He quickly figured out that Junhui was somehow older than him, which made this whole ordeal even more insane. The gap in their actual ages was like only a year, but the gap in their maturity? Ten years in the other direction.

Still, Junhui was _so_ sweet. The pink-haired boy took him to the arcade, insisting that he win enough tickets to win Minghao a Doraemon plush from the prize counter. It took approximately ten years of Junhui losing at just about every game -- and a jackpot from one of Minghao’s quarters -- to push them over the edge, but it was the thought that counted, right? And Junhui looked so happy asking for the Doraemon plush just to hand it over to Minghao. 

They were so engrossed in getting enough tickets that Minghao missed about ten texts from Soonyoung and Chan asking how much taffy he wanted; apparently he was going to end up with two large bags of soda-flavored taffy… gross. Maybe Junhui liked taffy?

Anyways, Junhui also paid for lunch (pizza, of course) and dessert (ice cream), which they were currently eating as they walked down the much busier beach boardwalk.

“So --” Junhui started, still licking his ice cream. “You’re heading back tonight, right?”

Junhui said it so matter-of-factly that Minghao wondered if Junhui had been thinking about this a lot. “Actually, no,” he replied. “My friends and I have a hotel room. I’m just hoping there’s a couch in the room because they already called dibs on splitting the bed.”

“I see,” Junhui equivocated, quickly changing the subject. “I’m craving something.”

Minghao looked over at Junhui, who had just finished his ice cream cone, wondering how this human vacuum cleaner could possibly have room for more food after he eating a _triple_ scoop of ice cream and two-thirds of their personal pizza. Maybe this was why Junhui was taller than him.

“What’re you craving, Junhui?”

“You’re gonna hate me,” he answered, innocently smiling.

“If you’re _craving_ to push me in the water again…”

“-- Taffy. I want taffy, Hao-hao.”

Junhui nodded expectantly, hoping that Minghao would go along with it. And honestly? If Junhui were Soonyoung or Chan, he probably would have said no.

… _But_ , he was really starting to like Junhui. Not only was he cute and pretty and looked like a model with sharp jawline and broad shoulders and everything, but he also was kind, funny, excitable, and all sorts of things that Minghao wasn’t. They might have been opposites, but they clicked; they got along really well. Minghao didn’t usually like people, but he liked Junhui. A lot.

“ _Fine_ ,” he reluctantly agreed. “But I’m not getting any and we’re not spending more than, like, ten minutes there, okay?”

Junhui smiled really wide and nodded. “Deal!”

They wandered into the next candy shop they happened upon on the boardwalk, and Junhui instantly gravitated toward the rows of bulk taffy containers. Meanwhile, Minghao scouted the place out for Soonyoung and Chan, making sure that they weren’t here. He was pretty sure that this was their least favorite of the candy stores, so hopefully they just wouldn’t come here at all, much less find Minghao with a new friend _and_ buying taffy. His friends weren’t here, and Junhui was quick like he promised, scooping out a few flavors into a small bag and paying at the front.

Just as the two of them were heading toward the door, Soonyoung and Chan stepped in together. Chan noticed Minghao first, tugging on Soonyoung’s shirt to get the older boy’s attention; he then motioned at Minghao and Junhui, who were clearly together. Minghao felt like melting into a puddle of taffy right then and there.

“Minghao! I thought you didn’t want taffy!” Chan shouted, bounding up to him in smug excitement. “And I thought you wanted to spend some time aaaa- _looooone_ ~”

Junhui giggled, Chan’s smirk only intensifying when he realized he was amusing Minghao’s new friend. Minghao, being the mortified introvert that he always was, tried to circle him and Junhui around Chan and get closer to the door, to freedom.

“Hey Hao, we checked into the hotel room,” Soonyoung reported, ignoring Chan’s antics. “Your gigantic bag of soda taffy is there, too.”

“Great, um, I’ll see you guys later!” Minghao quickly dismissed, dragging Junhui by the sleeve past Soonyoung and out the door.

“You guys look cute together!” Chan called after them, his stupid comment still very much audible to Minghao and Junhui from outside the store. Minghao blushed and let go of Junhui’s sleeve, slowly wandering away from the candy shop and back toward the beach. Junhui caught up to him with a smirk of his own plastered on his face.

“So, uh, those were your friends, I’m guessing?”

“Keyword: were.”

Junhui laughed. “They seemed nice, though!”

“Soonyoung’s cool,” Minghao replied. “Chan’s a little shit, though.”

“Are you -- are you blushing, Minghao?”

That was the first time in like four hours that Junhui had used his full name, and he liked the way it sounded when it rolled off of Junhui’s tongue with his lisp and everything. It was _cute_ , like everything Junhui did. And Minghao realized just now that everything that Junhui did, that everything he was doing was a little Too Much for him -- his cheeks were hot and felt red even though he couldn’t see them, so he knew Junhui wasn’t lying to him. He knew he was blushing because he knew he was falling for Junhui.

“Hao-hao, do you wanna know why I talked to you on the wall earlier?” Junhui blurted out, returning Minghao’s thought process back to how coy Junhui had been earlier about why he would go out of his way to talk to a random kid on the boardwalk.

“I mean…” Minghao dodged, secretly hoping that Junhui would tell him anyways.

“I thought you were cute,” Junhui finished, stopping in the middle of the boardwalk. “I think you’re cute, Minghao.”

“You -- you what?”

“I. Think. You’re. Cute.”

Junhui said each word like it was its own sentence, but Minghao heard him the first time. He heard him, but he couldn’t understand how someone as cute and energetic as Junhui could find someone as mellow and vanilla as him, well, _cute_.

“I think you’re really cute, too,” Minghao blurted out.

Junhui smiled. “Why don’t you stay over at my place tonight? You -- you don’t have to, of course, and we can -- or you can hang out with your friends since you haven’t seen them, like, all day, and you probably want to spend some time --”

“-- _Yes_ ,” Minghao answered. “Yes, I’ll stay with you tonight.”

Junhui’s smile got even wider this time, throwing his arms around Minghao and hugging him real tight. So tightly that Junhui lifted him off the ground a little.

“Wow, you really are light.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, by the way, I’m sorry in advance but like my grandparents, well, they run a small operation out of their house…”

Minghao frowned. What kind of operation? That didn't sound suspicious at all...

“Well, um, they kinda, uh, make…” Junhui mumbled. “They make freshly-made _taffy_ and--”

“Oh my _god_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Please leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed, they're always appreciated <3 Thank you~
> 
> Also, you can follow me on [Tumblr](http://shuuvee.tumblr.com) if you want!


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